Warren Buffett's Latest Leftist Bailouts: Newspapers and GM

Mega-mogul Warren Buffett has made a lot of money in our (semi) capitalist system. And he has schizophrenically spent a lot of time supporting politicians and policies that will drag us further still from our successful capitalist roots.

One way Buffett and Leftist mega-moguls like him help the Cause is to…”invest” in private entities with a Progressive bent. But it’s not an investment in the sense that they hope to glean a financial return. What they are doing instead is propping up failing business entities for ideological reasons.

As has been much discussed, newspapers are dying. By and large, the Jurassic Press has long been a Leftist anachronistic mess, which has not handled at all well the Internet revolution.

The epitome of the Progressive print species, the New York Times, recently needed to stave off oblivion with a massive cash infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú.

Buffett must have liked what he saw from Slim. So much so that he’s going big on Big Print – purchasing 63 newspapers. Propaganda, Inc.? Perhaps. Included in the mix is the currently conservativeRichmond Times-Dispatch— we’ll see how much longer that inclination lasts.

…Since its inception, General Motors Ventures has closed on 13 investments worth around $60 million, according to (GM’s Tim) Brumbaugh.

They include a $7.5 million investment in Sunlogics PLC — a manufacturer of solar-energy systems — and a $6 million investment in Proterra Inc., which makes zero-emission transit buses….

Would someone of Buffett’s business caliber look at this cavalcade of mess and say, “I need to get in on that?” Probably not.

Would someone of Buffett’s ideological persuasion look at Obama’s floundering, foundering Government Motors and reelection effort and say, “I guess I’ll get in on that.” Much more likely.

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We will see more of this. Leftist mega-moguls propping up — or setting up — private sector “business interests” to advance their ideological ones. There are, after all, no campaign contribution limits here.